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Attendees at September 1999 Ovarian Cancer Survivors Retreat hosted by Camp Mak-A-Dream, Gold Creek, Montana. www.CampDream.or

In Brief: Name: Julie Beth Kirtley Born 16 Feb 1961 - 'Reborn' an Ovarian Cancer Survivor 16 Oct 1989. Job: Clerical Career Location: Helena, Montana - Big Sky Country! OvCa Status: Healthy survivor of ovarian cancer since 1989 PRE-OP Diagnosis: 15 Oct 1989, Cysadenoma & Carcinoma of the Ovary with metastases to the Omentum. Treatment: 11 Oct 1989, laparotomy with excision of ruptured left ovarian cyst (right salpingo-oopherectomy). 16 Oct 1989, subsequent laparotomy with total hysterectomy, left salpingo-oopherectomy, peritoneal irrigation, omentectomy &appendectomy. POST-OP Diagnosis: Serous Cystadenocarcinoma of both left & right ovaries, chronic cervicitis, chronic salpingitis of right & left fallopian tubes, uterus with proliferative endometrium, leiomyoma of uterous, small nodule of metastatic serous cystadenocarcinoma in the omentum. No chemo, radiation or additonal treatments were administered. Diagnosed and treated by Dr. Joshua Salvador, Thorek Hosp., Chicago, IL. Ovarian Problems List subscriber since 15 Oct 2000.
	Life is a journey, not a destination... Remember, every day, and every way, you are a miracle, and a force to be reckoned with! (Author Unknown) Time alone heals nothing ~ only people heal each other. (Author Unknown) We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other (Luciano De Creschenzo To My Fellow Ovarian Cancer Survivors, and Others My name is Julie Beth Kirtley [Simon]. I have survived ovarian cancer since 1989. No one I knew had ever had it -- not any of my family, friends, or coworkers. To the best of my knowledge, I am the first and only one in my family to have contracted ovarian cancer. I was twenty-eight years of age at the time. To contract ovarian cancer at any age, especially someone as young as I was at the time, is rare. To survive it, rarer still. I am healthy now, but the memories of fighting for my life still haunt me. I was a new employee, working in a local factory in Chicago, Illinois at the time. As is common with most women who have/had ovarian cancer, my symptoms were extremely vague. No big red flags suggesting the dreaded "C" word ~ cancer. And at that time, having known nothing about ovarian cancer (except that Gilda Radner had died of it 6 months prior to my diagnosis) or any cancer for that matter, I attributed my symptoms to other, more common everyday ailments. I was experiencing a nagging, ever-increasing fatigue that no amount of sleep seemed to help. I thought perhaps it was my new job, which was pretty physically taxing, that was the cause of it. I had been having what I thought were two very uncomfortable episodes of "bad gas," and other vague abdominal discomforts that I attributed to nondescript gastrointestinal problems. Also, I had bled twice between two menstrual cycles, something I'd never done before. My mother actually had suggested this might be early onset of menopause (!), but I almost dismissed that idea since I was only 28. But, what if she was right? After all, she said she'd had an early menopause. But it wasn't until years later, after her death in 1993, that I found out she had not been honest about her age ~ she had sliced off 15 years! When I saw the family doctor, he ordered lower-abdominal/pelvic area sonograms, the results of which revealed two large cysts ~ one attached to each ovary. Also, he discovered my uterus was tilted, and said if I became pregnant, the fetus might not survive past the third month ~ would most likely spontaneously abort, and therefore wanted to correct it's position, to enable me to have children. While comparing the sizes of the cysts to fruit, my doctor described them as one being the size of a grapefruit, the other, an orange. Also, in comparing them to a pregnancy, he stated they were comparable to a four month fetus, in their combined size and weight. He told me these type of cysts are normally benign ~ in and of themselves harmless ~ but that as they grow, they would be taking up massive amounts of space in the cavity of my abdomen and begin squeezing and pushing against vital organs. If my organs were to get twisted and tangled around the cysts (a very real and scary possibility), the cysts could strangle them, cutting off blood supply and my organs' ability to function, posing a serious threat to my life. My doctor wanted to get them out of me, so surgery to remove them, and also to reposition my tilted uterus while he had me opened up, was advised, and my doctor scheduled my surgery for Wednesday of the week following the visit. He gave me no indication that it could become an emergency situation. On Monday of the following week, I woke up with severe pain in my abdomen ~ it was also distended and somewhat hard. I got dressed (whenever I look back on this experience, I can't believe I did this) and walked the three blocks from my house to the factory to work anyway, figuring it would just go away on it's own, like the other times it had occurred. About 11:30AM, it got so bad, I had to stop working, call my family, and have someone pick me up and drive me home. This time it was different ~ worse than before, and I was really frightened. My stepdad arrived at the factory to take me home. It felt like an eternity waiting for him to show up. The only standing position I could even remotely be comfortable in was in a bent over stoop ~ it was just too painful to my stomach for me to stand straight, and no one offered me a chair to sit in while I waited. By the time I got home, I could only lay on my back, with my knees bent up. Laying my legs flat made the pain completely intolerable. My mother called our family doctor, who told her to take me to the emergency room of Thorec Hospital. By 7:30PM that night, after a blur of endless hours of pre-op preparations, tests and being told by my doctor that he believed my problem was being caused by one of my cysts twisting just as he had thought they would, I was in the operating room, about to have the first surgery of my life. I was so scared, but had no energy to even experience the physical aspects of fright. I awoke the next morning overwhelmed with extreme pain, grogginess, and an unexpected rush of raw, uncensored emotions. It may seem irrational, but my very first thought upon awakening was "How dare they ~ how dare they invade me like that! I've been cut open, and things were done inside of me! It hurts, and I'm not the same anymore. Why me??" I felt surgically raped, and nothing and no one could console me for hours. I wanted SO much to scream, but was just too weak ~ all I could manage was a little moan, which only served to frustrate and upset me even more. It wasn't until I was fully out of the anesthetic that my logical and rational cognitive processes returned, and I realized that the surgery was an emergency procedure to remove one of the cysts. It had indeed twisted, creating immense pressure in my abdomen, and it may have been in this twisted position for a while. It was when it moved in one direction or another that I felt the extreme discomfort and pressure. It was also discovered that I had developed peritonitis, which was the cause of the unbearable pain and distention of my abdomen. On the second day, I was removed from ICU and taken to a regular room. It was then that my doctor told me the whole story of what had been going on inside of me. Not only did I have the two cysts, a tilted uterus, and peritonitis to contend with, but now ovarian cancer was suspected as well. The right cyst (which was the one that twisted, and ruptured too, I later found out), and the ovary it was attached to were sent off to be biopsied. My family and I waited 4 agonizing days for the results, during which my life felt as if it was balancing on a tightrope. When the results were returned, they showed both the cyst and the ovary to be positive for ovarian cancer. The cancer of the ovary was well contained, but my doctor was worried about the ruptured cyst. He thought it might be cancerous too, and there was cause to be concerned about the spread of cancer to other areas of my body. So, early the next morning, my doctor cut me open again, through the same surgery site as the first, and did a second surgery. This time, considerably more would be done than during the first. The first surgery lasted about two and a half hours ~ this second surgery was more than three hours. My doctor performed a laundry list of procedures: radical hysterectomy, bilateral oopherectomy, appendectomy, and omentectomy as well, because a metastasized tumor was found in the omentum. Not surprisingly, the follow-up biopsy results from this surgery showed cancer of the left ovary (well contained) and left cyst (no twisting or rupturing) as well. I remember prior to the second surgery asking if my eggs could be saved, and was told there were no more eggs left to be saved, because the cancer had destroyed them all. I was a virgin still at that time, and this news devastated me, on top of the already shocking news of the cancer and everything else that had gone wrong with me physically. Even the factory added to my misery, by calling me while I was in my hospital bed to tell me I had no job to return to. I was in hospital for 14 days, most of which had been spent recovering in ICU. I remember long hours spent there, looking out the windows at the dreary October rain fall, thinking how the endless drops of water resembled the tears I was crying. My recovery at home, though no chemotherapy was given, was a year-long process of the deepest depression I'd ever known. Though my mother visited me daily during my hospital stay, it was when I returned home that I became quickly aware I would never be able to talk to her or anyone else in my family about my experience. My family's need for me to "get over it" within their time frame, not mine, made me feel like a nuisance, and only added more to the painful process. I wanted so much to learn more about ovarian cancer ~ it was the enemy in a battle that nearly cost me my life. But my mother thought I was being morbid when I expressed any curiosity about the disease. Having been born in 1929, she was of the "old school." She expected me to be stoic and put it behind me as quickly as possible. This disease destroyed my ovaries, leaving me no hope of conceiving or bearing children the natural way, which devastated me, for I'd always wanted to experience the joy of having a child grow inside of me, and childbirth. I had lost all of my reproductive organs, my job, my boyfriend, and even my sense of feeling like a woman. Ovarian cancer, like a tornado, tore through my life. In the aftermath, I somehow had to figure out how to put the pieces of my life back together alone, even as I recovered at home, surrounded by family. Consequently, I buried the pain as deeply as I could, and tried, in vain, to keep it covered. Over the years, though, it took it's toll on me. Emotionally and physically, it was exhausting to keep up my "I'm OK" front, and it began eventually to wear me down. I learned the hard way that deep and painful feelings from a traumatic experience cannot be buried indefinitely. Just as sneaky and insidious as the ovarian cancer, was the grief and pain that followed it -- seeping its way into every aspect of my life. Nothing looked, felt, smelled, or tasted the same anymore. My life was not the same anymore. My experience was horrific. No matter how hard I tried, there was no escaping that. I desperately needed to reach out ~ to find others like me with whom I could share my story. I am grateful to God for life, and though there were times during my experience when I had truly wished the cancer could have finished me off, I am happy to be alive now. The fear that ovarian cancer could return is a constant concern for me, even now, and yet I have hope that I can look forward to many more years of life. Thank you so much for allowing me to share my story with you, and I hope you can do the same with me and others who visit this site -- that's just what I created it for! Sincerely, Julie Beth Kirtley [Simon] Ovarian Cancer Survivor JulieBethKirtley@aol.com Important Note By The Author: My attendance at the Annual Ovarian Cancer Retreat, hosted by Camp Mak-A-Dream, in Gold Creek, Montana (about halfway between Missoula and Helena), has been the most cathartic experience of my life. Seeing the warm, familiar faces welcoming me in and knowing that in this place, I can openly share my experience with ovarian cancer validates my pain. At this retreat, it's OK to cry about it, OK simply to talk about it. There is no other place I have, and no one else I can turn to for this incredible experience. For information on this, as well as their annual four day Women's Cancer Retreat, please click on the link at the bottom of this page. P.S. Please show your support! Wear an Ovarian Cancer teal-colored ribbon or teal clothing every September -- the month officially devoted to the cause of Ovarian Cancer. Even better, wear an ovarian cancer teal ribbon daily!!! Ovarian Cancer -- it whispers, so listen...
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